1/5

posted Jan-02-2007

"My money was refunded by Monarch after I repeatedly attempted to contact them via e-mail and phone for six weeks after placing my order. I finally disputed the transaction via PayPal and received a refund without comment from Monarch. I've been buying products online for over a decade, but what amazes me about Monarch is that they will take the time to dispute comments made by dissatisfied former customers on this and other forums without responding to questions and status queries from their existing customers. The excuse about broken phones and lost e-mails only goes so far. This company has a serious credibility and image problem."

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1/5

posted Dec-26-2006

"I made a large server order in late November, and have waited over a month for any updates on its status. I asked about details via the order status inquiry form three times, and only got automated response e-mails. I got really frustrated that they charged my card, and I even paid for a "Hot Rush" expedite on the order, yet there was absolutely nothing being done. Then I read this:

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MjMwMDgsLCxobmV3cywsLDE=

I wrote and called to cancel the order immediately, all with nothing but automated replies. I called the credit card company to reverse the charge, and they are still investigating. It may be up to another month before I get my money back, even though I never received anything -- not even a human e-mail response.
"

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1/5

posted Dec-19-2006

"What shame...have had fantastic dealings with them in the past, however, I have a $200+ store credit with them which appears to have gone up into thin air. They do not return emails as has been stated before, and all the Mailboxes are full via voicemail. Not to mentio the local number has been disconnected and the technichal support numbers have been disconnected as well.

Screw - them. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM!

"

This review was modified by Zypher48 on December 20 2006 04:35:16 PM

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1/5

posted Dec-18-2006

"I placed an order for a motherboard and was advised by the website that it was backordered. Called Newegg and it was in stock. Called Monarch to cancel the backorder as I had already ordered it elsewhere and was put into voicemail. Called back many times and got the same voicemail. Long story short, I have an extra $300 motherboard. I wouldn't do business with this joint again if my life depended upon it. Go to Newegg or Tigerdirect."

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1/5

posted Dec-18-2006

"DO NOT BUY FROM THIS RESELLER, unless you are prepared to spend hours on the phone, or endless emails that are unanswered unless you threaten to stop payment on your credit card. And then, you may receive incompatible or damaged items and NO SUPPORT. They just ignore you."

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1/5

posted Dec-18-2006

"I also have had a terrible situation with this company, it is now the 18th of Dec and I am STILL missing items from my computer order that was places back in Sept. On top of that they sent me a bent case that was the wrong color, the wrong monitor. Also they gave me a (hand me down) graphics card cause the one I ordered for the computer had an issue, so they were going to refund me for it, I have been to their web site and amazingly anof they have taken their phone number off and I cant find it... With all of the issue's I am having, bent case, different graphics card, wrong monitor, still missing key board... They are up to around 500$ US and will be hearing from my Military Legal section very soon."

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1/5

posted Dec-17-2006

"Update: It's definitely happened, they're out of business. I borrowed this from a reviewer on another website:

"went to the business itself. the front door was locked, "out of business" sign on it. some guys came out and told me they were still selling products but they were only gonna be there for another couple of weeks. they were bought out after a financial disaster in the past. buyer beware."

File a dispute with your credit card company or bank now!

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM MONARCH!

I've had the same horrendous experience as everyone else on this website: 6 weeks after I placed my order, I had no product, no reason from customer service why I don't have my computer, no reponse to emails or voicemails, etc. After reading everyone's horror stories on this website, I cancelled my order (by email and voicemail messages) and called my credit card company and filed a dispute. I got my money back within one week, and finally have Monarch out of my life. No more busy signals, hours of sitting on hold, and lying customer service representatives."

This review was modified by sandra_1 on December 19 2006 06:59:41 AM

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1/5

posted Dec-16-2006

"My feeling is that Monarch is on the verge of going out of business. I still have not heard back from them for over two weeks of DAILY phone messages (before the mailboxes were full) and several emails. I did not sign the online agreement, and my company's lawyer is now involved, and so is our bank. They owe me 4,300+ dollars back. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THESE PEOPLE."

This review was modified by theham007 on December 17 2006 08:03:06 PM

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1/5

posted Dec-16-2006

"Here's an update, I am NOT defending Monarch.

But someone down there is still breathing as I've noticed the website has been updated 3 days in a row -- and the biggest surprise -- they emailed me this morning (12/16/06) to say my system has been shipped back to me and UPS verifies this.

What exactly is in the box they're sending to me I'll soon find out... it weighs exactly the same as what I sent them on the RMA. I'm not expecting the thing to work when I get it back, but I wanted to let the rest of you know I've seen "some movement" and you should keep on them to satisfy you.

Who knows, maybe it was my call two days ago to the Dekalb County Police that finally got their attention.

EDIT >> FYI, I've since found out from the DCPD that if one wants to file a complaint they should file with their local police (if it was a web transaction). They told me that "if" there's an issue, it legally occured in my locality of business; they added that my local police would then contact the DCPD.

>> UPDATE: Got the system back on 12/19/06 -- much to my surprise - fully repaired. I hope someone down there *does* have a conscience and will get to the rest of you."

This review was modified by KevCarrico on December 20 2006 10:16:23 AM

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1/5

posted Dec-15-2006

"Those assholes Stole $4000 from me!!

I am a poor college student seeking to get the best bang for his buck...I looked all over the web and determined that Monarch provides the best product for the money, and from what I have seen no other site lets you customize a PC so specifically. I have friends who ordered from them in the past and they were extremely satisified. Also, for years they have had a gold rating so I felt pretty confident that they would deliver me a great product.

But No...times have changed apparently.
I should have known something was up when I had to wait on hold half an hour just to ORDER the machine. I finally gave up ordering over the phone and placed the order online--DUMB MISTAKE. Out of principal, if I'm spending several thousand dollars I want to be able to at least speak with the person to whom I'm handing over my money. So I order online, and immediately call after to see if the order went through...no answer. I call again the next day. No answer. I email. No answer. I start to leave messages in every voicemailbox in their company. NO ANSWER. For a month now, I've been trying to contact them, and not one time have I spoken with a human being. Not a single email has been responded to, and now if you go to their website it is malfunctioning.

This company has gone down the fucking toilet as me and so many other poor customers have been lied to and subsequently robbed. Blacklist this company. I'm now in the first stage of getting my money back and I hope it doesn't take any extensive legal action eventually. I am so mad about this.

Theory as to why the might be going out of business: AMD.

I admit I am going out on a limb here, but my instincts are telling me that a big reason they might be going out of business is because of lack of people's interest in buying AMD products. Monarch pushed AMD products on its customers for years--its top line of servers, desktops and workstations were all AMD based. There were always the best deals on AMD systems--Monarch received the prestigious AMD Crystal Wafer Outstanding Partner and they are also an AMD PLATINUM Solution Provider...they probably got great deals dealing with AMD, and in turn sold tons of products. The big problem now is that AMD has finally lost the performance race to Intel's Core2Duo line of chips. Any enthusiast buying a new PC today would be foolish to buy AMD. Any big business buying servers would be foolish to go with AMD Anyone buying from Monarch is most likely someone who knows a thing or two about computers, and if they know anything they won't be buying AMD. So basically I think Monarch was doing great for awhile selling AMD products, but now no real enthusiast wants them. Even in the server market AMD has lost to Intel. New Xeon processors are better. Basically no one wants AMD anymore (at least until they have better products). Monarch probably banked on people buying AMD but in the last six months Intel has regained the performance crown and Monarch no longer has a customer base wanting AMD---people now want Intel, and Monarch doesn't have as good a deal with Intel, and they probably have a huge inventory of AMD that no one is buying.

IT makes sense that in the last 6 months their reseller rating has gone down...that's exactly when core2duo was launched... "

This review was modified by Rifleman on December 15 2006 12:37:13 PM

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5/5

posted Dec-15-2006

"*edit i am so happy MONARCH went belly up the crooks

Ordered a opteron 170 and a 250 seagate SATA drive...week later called to check on status...they said the harddrive was oversold and that delayed my order....called a week later...no stock on the opteron... mind you their website on 10/19 said IN STOCK....Nov 7th finally cancelled my order....it is now dec 15th and no refund.. This is standard practice with Monarch...only hope is my CC company return my money.

NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM MONARCH

*EDIT.... the guy above me is saying Monarch is going down because of AMD losing the performance crown to INTEL...thats just silly.... AMD is selling every chip it can make... 95% of people do not know what a conroe is... The REAL issue is when DELL sucked up all the AMD chips out the market.... MONARCH CANT GET ENUFF AMD CHIPS....If they had a glut of unsold ATHLONS in the warehouse because noone wants them..... then i would have gotten my AMD CPU in no time.... The problem is AMD but its because DELL has drained the market of ATHLONS and Monarch distributor chain is dry..."

This review was modified by popegold on November 10 2008 07:02:34 AM

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1/5

posted Dec-15-2006

"It took over half a year ( 10 March to 26 August ) to get a $4000 "gaming computer" to me that worked with out crashing after less than a hour of running.
Their lack of COMUNICATIONS was a HUGE ISSUE.
With over 40 phone calls and emails only one person ( DAVID ) took care of my issues.
From "JUMP"--- when I ordered the computer the salesperson gave bad advise, followed by the credit dept. taking over 10 days to process my credit card # ( I have cancelled that card ), then the idiots who put the wrong components inside, placed many of incorrectly, all while working at a SNAIL pace. I payed for HOT RUSH order the 10th of May -- it shipped on the 18th of April!!!! And of course IT DID NOT WORK!!!
Their phone system and the lack of "giving a DAMN" about my situation was very frustrating.
Thanks to David ( on of the tech. support guys ) I now have a computer ( worked OK on 26 August ) that with some additional expense ( My $$ no doubt ) will be Ok and soon for sale ( CHEAP)!!!!"

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1/5

posted Dec-14-2006

"On 9 Nov 2006 I ordered a system (Media Center A Series) for 1133.27. The email receipt stated up to 20 business days to ship. It has now been 34 days and there has been no progress on the status web page, my emails have not been responded to and all efforts to contact the company via phone have failed.

I have called every business day since the 7th. On Tuesday I was determined to get them on the phone. I got their answering machine and after one hour on hold (10-11), I called on another phone and had their answering machine tell me they were closed. LOL. I waited for another hour then called again on another phone and they were now “open” again. After over two hours on hold (1000-1215), I gave up. Their answering machine said they were closed all day today. Taking the advice of other posters I filed a PayPal dispute.

This was the first time I had ordered from this company and I am kicking myself for not researching better before I ordered. The company has been around for a while and I had looked up their ratings several times over the years so didn’t imagine they could get this bad so fast. I can’t say anything positive them at the moment. It appears they are just taking peoples money with no intention of delivering.
"

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4/5

posted Dec-14-2006

"I am a consumer class action attorney in California. I ordered a $2500 system on 10-31-06. A few weeks later, I was advised they were having trouble obtaining the video card I selected but if I would upgrade they had one in hand. I agreed.

I received my system on 12-8. It was assembled neatly with all cables tied and sheathed. I ran it through burn-it and some other testing programs and it seems to be functioning optimally (except for a 5.1 dolby sound issue, which I believe I have fixed). When I did try to get tech support for that problem there was no effective way to reach anyone there.

As I was waiting in November, and becoming increasingly concerned due to the postings on Monarch's forum (now removed) and this website, I was able to get some assistance from "Greg" in sales who apparently expedited my order (perhaps he was influenced by my profession).

It does appear from Monarch's website that it is selling off any miscellaneous parts as well as various refurbished computers (probably from its own ones that broke over the years and had to be replaced).

Perhaps a new owner is going to take over the company or perhaps they are done for good. I second or third the request that someone go by the brick and mortar store and report their findings.

If they do file bankruptcy, there is going to be little chance of recovering your money. Best to make claims on your credit card if that is how you paid ASAP.

Personally, I am going to make a claim based on the fact they sold a 3 year warranty when they knew they were going out of business.

However, I reiterate they did deliver my system, it is clean and appears to be functioning very well. It was packed properly as well. So they apparently are still capable of assembling a quality system. I would give them a very favorable rating for delivering a quality system to me, but regrettably I appear to be the exception.

I hope there will be a new owner who will honor the warranty and they can resume system production in the near future."

This review was modified by jeffreywilens on December 14 2006 02:38:46 PM

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1/5

posted Dec-14-2006

"on november 2nd i placed an order with monarch, after hearing that they were a good company to work with. i ordered a processor and mo-board combo. my cc was instantly charged 472.55. i paid for 3 day shipping. after 3 weeks i never saw my order so i called, after waiting on hold for over an hour finally someone answered. i was told the processor was not in stock and that they could only sell me the mother board, and that my cc would be credited the remaing ballance of 267.97, well its now december 14 and no credit had been aplyed to my card, when i call all voice mails are full and i get a recording saying they are closed......DO NOT ORDER FROM MONARCH!!!GO WITH NEW EGG they are the mad note yo! Im at a loss as to what to do with my situation, i just want my money back, its christmas time after all and i could use the money they STOLE from me."

This review was modified by dskblast on December 14 2006 08:37:13 AM

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